


It's always the end of the world somewhere

by qwerty



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur is a treehugger, Everybody Dies, M/M, Reincarnation, Suicide, Tentacles, Watersports, backstabbing is fun, happy endings, luckily they all have more lives than an equivalent number of cats, sex with trees
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 21:32:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwerty/pseuds/qwerty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter what happens in the world, the cycle of vengeance must go on. It falls to Arthur to draw people together and end it, as he did once before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's always the end of the world somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the merlin_games challenge under team reincarnation. 
> 
> Prompt: "No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will cramp his style." ~ Steven Brust

5\. **beyond the world and the seven seas**

Around the thirteenth or so time they met, it was Arthur who had the knife sticking out of his back as he skidded round the corner, nearly crashing into Merlin as he emerged from the security door he'd just opened. Merlin stared at the protruding weapon, trying to remember where he had seen the richly worked metal and ornately inlaid gems sparkling on the hilt before. Arthur noticed him in the next instant and turned immediately, glaring back at him. There was uncertain half-recognition sparking in his eyes as he automatically reached for the disruptor strapped to his hip. As always. When in doubt, Arthur shot first and asked questions later. Merlin backed up and held up his hands in clear surrender.

"Lieutenant Commander Pendragon? I'm with the engineering support crew from Albion 3 Spaceport. You asked for help with your Serket infestation? We docked with your ship just when your containment field on the third deck broke and I got separated from the others in the confusion.

The submissive gesture and his slightly battered Alliance uniform seemed to allay some of Arthur's tension -- he probably assumed the feeling of familiarity came from the moment before he recognised the uniform, as most people Merlin met would, but he kept his hand on the weapon, thumb hovering over the safety. Merlin couldn't tell if it was set to kill or stun. "It took your lot long enough to get the permissions and requisition forms cleared," Arthur said, still watching him closely. "We asked for backup nearly eleven days ago."

The original relief mission had been intercepted and taken over by Cornelius Sigan's body-snatchers. It had taken nine days for Merlin to get back from his long-delayed vacation on Ealdor 5 (he hadn't even landed on the planetary surface when the emergency recall orders reached him), chase down and exorcise each crew member individually, and then gather his grumbling team to rush to Arthur's rescue. But Arthur didn't need to know that, so Merlin just grinned brightly at him. "Well, we're here now. What's with that ceremonial blade in your back?"

Arthur sighed as the floor beneath them rocked again with a distant blast. "Conservatory is full of the things. One of the small ones got on my back before we sealed off the sector. Witch-Captain LeFay threw a repulsion ward with her knife and I haven't been able to reach it to pull it off," he said, indicating the heavily scored armour plates that, flexible as they were, still inhibited the movement of his shoulders enough to keep him from reaching the knife planted squarely in the centre of his back plate. "She's gone with Leon to check on the life-support centre." He paused, then clarified, "Leon is Chief of Security."

"Witch-Captain LeFay, in the Conservatory, with a ritual knife," Merlin repeated, amused. Catching the tone, if not the reference, Arthur scowled at him, suspicious. "I'm just glad she's on our side! I've heard a lot about her."

"Of course she is, where else would she be? Where are the rest of your people? Do you still have working communications? Ours went down when a pack hit the comm tower." Arthur rolled his shoulders stiffly and checked his disruptor again as the warning klaxons went off, indicating another sector breach.

It would take a lot more than a destroyed comm tower to cut off Merlin's lines of contact with his team. Merlin smiled and fiddled with his earpiece for show, and said, "Sure. Guardsmen Lance and Gwaine say they've found your ship doctor, Elyan White? And his sister, Ensign Guinevere. They've secured the medical wing, got almost everyone in there now. Once we join them, we can run the cleansing protocols and burn all the Serkets out."

"Good," Arthur said, then cocked his head curiously and squinted at Merlin. "Do I know you... Oh, right. You're not so useless this time round." He shook his head, laughed, slapping Merlin's shoulder as he drew and armed his disruptor, and began jogging down the corridor. Merlin grinned and hurried after him.

* * *

4\. **a plague on both your houses**

"Answer the phone," Arthur was saying, low and urgent. "Answer the bloody phone, damn you, pick up." Merlin shifted uncomfortably in the sweat-damp, musty-smelling sheets tangling his limbs, and tried to rouse himself. Something was up. He managed to raise himself on his elbows as Arthur cursed and started jabbing buttons on his cellphone again.

"Still can't raise the others?" he asked, hating how weak and thready his voice sounded. Arthur shot a concerned look at him, the hard lines around his eyes and mouth softening momentarily, then turned his attention back to the phone. "They're ok. Everyone managed to check in while you were sleeping. Percival managed to get Gaius and Hunith out of the lab, they're in an armoured car on the way to the Alpha site now. Hunith had some ideas about a possible vaccine, Percival said."

A possible vaccine. A hope, even a small, distant one. Merlin tipped his head to rest his hot cheek against the cool, dusty wall of Arthur's childhood room, absorbing the information. "Then who were you trying to reach? If everyone has contacted you... is Uther safe?"

He regretted it as the words left his mouth. Arthur's lips thinned immediately, eyes narrow and hard with stoic conflict over his feelings for his father, whose desperate, mad quest for vengeance on everyone who could possibly be linked to the death of Arthur's mother in a laboratory accident had unleashed the plague on the world. "He's fine," Arthur said, fingers tapping impatiently on the table as the ringing went to voice-mail again. The generic female voice asking him to leave a message was cut off, and Merlin heard him jabbing hard at the keys again. "Better than he deserves. Aglain and the others have him secured in an asylum where he can do no more harm."

Merlin turned his head back slowly to look at Arthur, vision blurring as the aching heat burned through his limbs. "So who are you calling?"

Arthur bowed his head and rubbed his face with his palms. "Morgana. A scout reported seeing two women who looked like her and Morgause in one of the hot zones. If they're really there..." He inhaled, exhaled. "I have to go after them. You should stay here, rest a little longer. Be safe."

The old house was never intended as more than a temporary, fragile shelter. There was no water, no power, nowhere to obtain fresh supplies of food or medicine. Their coming here was no more than self-indulgent retreat from the realities of their situation. He reached out, took and squeezed Arthur's hand. "Wait a bit. I'll come with you. You wouldn't know what to do without me anyway."

Arthur leant to touch his cool, dry forehead to Merlin's. "What can you do besides lie around looking pathetic? You can barely walk in a straight line now." Merlin swatted feebly at him, and he caught and held Merlin's hands, laughing.

"It's just minor burnout. I've still got my magic. I'll get back my strength soon enough," he insisted, and after a moment, Arthur nodded.

*

They found Morgana when a knife flashed past Merlin's head to embed itself deeply in the filthy alley wall. Arthur shoved Merlin off his shoulder to flatten him against the wall, peering around the corner to see Morgana crouched there with another knife poised in readiness. Morgause was sitting on the ground by her side, leaning heavily against her knee as Merlin had been against Arthur. She had a soiled bandage wrapped crookedly on her head, tufts of shorn golden hair sticking out from underneath.

"It's us," Arthur called out urgently, ducking back as Morgana threw the blade in her hand and retrieved another one. He stuck his head out again. "It's me and Merlin! We've been looking everywhere for you."

The cracked laugh she let out then was painful to hear. "I know! Keep your sick dog away from Morgause, she's hurt and her resistance is down. I won't heal him of the damn plague you brought upon us!"

Arthur flinched, but only for a moment. "Merlin's not sick! Morgause won't be either; the plague doesn't affect people with magic. He just overexerted himself. Come with us!"

Morgause nodded and murmured something to Morgana, seeming to surprise her into lowering her third knife. She stared at Arthur, pale eyes bright and watery and mouth twisted in confusion. "If that is the case, what in the name of all that is logical are you doing here? You have no magic! You could catch the plague and die!"

Arthur pulled out Morgana's knives from the walls and tossed them back to her, careful and low. "We're all going to die sometime. It's not like it's permanent, for us." He grinned, shrugged, and turned serious again. "You can't stay here, Aredian's going to raze the entire place to try to slow the spread of the plague."

A distant rumble began, as if in response to his words. They all looked in that direction, but nothing was visible yet. Morgana nodded slowly and pulled Morgause's arm over her shoulder, helping her to her feet while Arthur did the same for Merlin. "You didn't need to come to tell me this, but thank you for the information. We will not come with you; there are other places we can go." They started to turn away, then Morgana hesitated, looked back. "Farewell."

* * *

3\. **interlude: three hundred years of solitude**

"I can't believe you're a bloody tree, Merlin, of all the stupid, utterly useless things you could have become. A tree!" Arthur paused in his furious monologue to take a few more deep breaths before he resumed his pacing and jabbing his finger at the unyielding, rough wood, not caring that it hurt his fingertip even through the tough callous he'd acquired from an embarrassing teenage period spent playing tragic songs of heartbreak and loss on his guitar while he waited for Merlin to appear.

"Three fucking hundred years I waited and you didn't bother to show your idiot face, and I thought, I thought." Arthur stopped, scrubbed his face indignantly, gasped for air and kicked the nearest thick root a few times, glad no one was around to see him ranting at a tree in the middle of the night.

"The town council was going to cut you down! I had to chain myself to you, of all the ridiculous things you've ever made me do for you. Say something, you stupid vegetable, stop standing around like an idiot. I was an actual girl the last time and you never came to try it out. Fuck."

It was probably only Merlin's outrageous and unfair good luck that had allowed him to set root by this quiet, mostly unfrequented path on the outskirts of the sleepy little town. There wasn't any real reason anyone needed to cut Merlin down, or nothing Arthur could say or do would have been any use.

He'd run out of gas, more or less. There was only so much righteous indignation and hurt one could vent at an unresponsive tree before one started to feel even more idiotic than the tree being railed at. One last, heavy sigh, and he stepped forward and wrapped his arms as far around the thick trunk as he could reach, pressing his unshaven cheek against the mossy bark. "Did you miss me?"

Branches creaked softly in an unfelt breeze, and the susurration of the leaves sounded like a soft chorus of whispered "yes". He closed his eyes and breathed in the smells of green growing things and moist, turned earth beneath the dry topsoil.

Darkness enveloped them. The sounds of crickets and night creatures seemed to recede into a fuzzy distance, and something cool and heavy closed around his shoulders, wrapping him firmly. Arthur blinked to full alertness and pushed instinctively at the trunk, and found he was pinned by firm branches.

The tree he was being held against was still hard, still rough, but it seemed to mould itself under him, shaping itself to fit his body comfortably. He felt oddly safe, protected, even considering the oddness of his position. 

"Merlin?" he asked, tentatively, but the only answer was the whispering leaves and cool leaves brushing past his neck. The air smelt very green and sweet, like fresh sap seeping from a broken branch.

Then he felt it -- light, almost unfelt touches at his collar and sleeves, carefully feeling around the fabric before slipping in to wrap soft and cool tendrils around his neck and wrists. Firmer touches up his shoes to tangle around his ankles. He broke out in a sweat that had nothing to do with the warm summer night as the fine tendrils, roots, whatever, extended up his sleeves and trouser legs, and crept down from his neck to weave a fine mesh around his torso. "What are you doing, Merlin?" he whispered, then pressed his mouth to the cool bark to muffle his groan as the soft threads grew to completely cover his body beneath his clothes, flexing delicately against his skin as if sipping at his sweat.

Time crawled by as the tree patiently completed weaving its hair-fine net around his privates, and ground to a halt altogether as he shuddered in the impossible bindings that seemed to be gently milking his entire body for any moisture it could produce: fine, prickling tugs at his skin wherever it was most warm and moist, teasing almost-intrusions ticking the tip of his half-hard prick, eliciting a small, humiliating rush of hot liquid before he could stop himself -- not that Merlin seemed to mind -- the idiot was a tree, after all, Arthur realised, then allowed the threads to tease him into a release again, that the web of fine roots around him drank in thirstily, tightening around his whole body so as to let any drop escape.

It wasn't satisfied with just his piss, Arthur thought; Merlin in any shape was just greedy as ever, while the tree began pulling softly over his skin again tangling around and tugging at his nipples and chest hair. A thicker, viney tendril probed at his lips as he inhaled, and he let it in and nursed at it as it swelled thick and full against his tongue, green and sweet and slightly astringent.

Another tug at his belt, a gentle pushing insistently at his waist and inside his trousers until another tendril found its way under his shirt and pants to reach sticky and hard into the crack of his arse, circling the clenching muscle that guarded his entrance until he deliberately relaxed and let it nudge slowly inside.

The tacky sap that lubricated the tendril's movements as it grew inside him felt... odd. Cool at first, then slowly warming, until it felt like an itch, burning inside him until he began to try to push back against the thickening vine, rub himself on it to ease the itching sensation while the meshwork net of fine roots flexed maddeningly over his cock and balls, tightening and relaxing and tightening again, knowing squeezes just short of too hard.

The head of the vine brushed his prostate, and Arthur sucked in his breath hard, biting down slightly on the woody vine in his mouth, and rocked back against the vine inside him, and pushed down, again and again, while white spots flashed behind his closed eyelids, fucking himself desperately on the vine even as it swelled larger and harder, stretching and filling him until he thought he would burst with it.

How long they continued Arthur could no longer tell. After they finally untangled themselves slowly, achingly from each other, Arthur touched his lips to the rough trunk, which had returned to its original shape, and whispered, "how much longer?" Then he curled up in the sheltering embrace offered by the hollow of the tree's roots, huddling close, and slept.

He had to go back to work the following day, of course. And that night, a sudden, violent thunderstorm kept him at home, looking out into the darkness and waiting impatiently for the rain to stop so he could visit Merlin again.

In the morning, he returned to the old tree and stood there for a long time, taking in the still, blackened shell of the tree that had been split to the base by a bolt of lightning.

He quit his job and found a new one in the city, far away. He moved there, and never came back.

* * *

2\. **a crucible**

"How are you feeling?" Merlin asked brightly from his perch by Arthur's head. In reply, Arthur lifted his back off the floor enough to rotate around in the confined space and reverse his position, lay back down and kicked out hard at the bars facing Merlin. Merlin gave a careless flip of his wings, puffing out and smoothing his sleek black feathers back down, apparently unfazed by the crash of metal so close to him. Merlin cawed twice and flipped his wings again for verisimilitude before one of the village men came forward to shoo him away, making superstitious warding gestures against evil as he muttered darkly about impatient carrion eaters.

The man avoided meeting Arthur's gaze and hurried away without looking at him once Merlin was gone. Arthur watched him leave and turned his eyes back to the bleak grey sky overhead, letting his eyes glaze over and unfocus so he could ignore the iron bars blocking his view.

Just two more hours to sunset. And a little longer before the full moon took over the night. He scratched lightly at the invisible scar on his shoulder, feeling an anticipatory itch pulling at the flesh there. When the time came, that would be where his flesh began to pull itself apart like a tattered old sheet. He almost looked forward to the change. Being thrown in the lake and drowned, or burnt in a bonfire would hurt, but it would be only once, and comparatively brief, considering that his condition was... permanent.

Really, he could have borne any hand his fate dealt him, but the one thing he really objected to was the injustice of being blamed for crimes he hadn't even been in the area to commit at the time. Soured milk, lost chickens, destroyed vegetable gardens -- all things that could have happened any time, with perfectly plausible non-supernatural causes. What did a werewolf have to do with milk and vegetables? He was only a convenient target to blame.

A wererabbit would be a more likely suspect. He spent some time toying with the notion of how such a creature might have come about, what it would look like, and how it might have actually carried out its dastardly deeds. It was amusing for a while, until he thought about how he was going to be punished for the sins of this hypothetical wererabbit.

By then his thoughts had moved on to wondering what Merlin was up to, flying free and happy somewhere away from him. Did he have plans for rescue? Or was he just, ha, winging it without a real plan like he did most of the time?

As if on cue, a ruckus started up at the other end of the encampment. Voices raised in indiscernible tones of outrage and fear. He was trying to find a comfortable position in the small cage to get as close to sitting up as possible when Merlin flew back silently, self-satisfaction glowing in every single black feather. "What did you do?" Arthur asked, suspicious.

Merlin held out the key to the cage with a clawed foot, shaking it tauntingly.

Arthur snatched it away and began working at the lock. "What? Talk, idiot bird."

When the lock finally clicked open, Arthur kicked the door again, feeling immense satisfaction at the way it clanged away and rattled on the side of the cage. He rolled out and stretched immediately, wincing at the creaks and cracks his body produced during this struggle. "Morgana is here too," Merlin announced in a croak.

"What?" Having flopped down to grab at his cramping leg, Arthur stopped and stared blankly at Merlin, forgetting about his pain.

The crow strutted into a sauntering black cat and rubbed up against his leg, purring. "She pinned the blame for all her witchery on you, but since you haven't actually transformed in anyone's sight, I took cat form and did uncat-like things around her house until someone got the idea that she was a witch. Which she is, anyway. So now they've taken their torches and pitchforks to her house as she deserves," Merlin grumbled a little bitterly, blinking at Arthur.

Arthur closed his eyes in frustration, then pushed himself up.

"Ready to go?" Merlin rose back into his true human form, with Arthur's pack slung over his shoulder in addition to his own.

"Yes, we're going to rescue Morgana," Arthur said. "We can't leave her to these ignorant folk, neither of them deserve to have to deal with the other." 

At times like this, even Arthur found it hard to tell whether he meant to protect the common people or to help Morgana.

(It didn't turn out well for anyone in the end.)

1\. **the end of the beginning**

After Camlann, after the initial chaos that descended in the wake of Arthur's passing, an uneasy peace crept in as everyone salvaged what they could and shaped themselves new places in the bereft land. Gwen had left with Elyan even before the memorial was held; Merlin did not blame her for it.

Not long afterwards, Gwaine had taken Percival questing, or so he said, but it was clear to all that Percival needed to not be here, surrounded by reminders of the second family he'd lost. Steadfast Leon, still nursing a broken arm and hobbling everywhere on a sturdy stick like an old man, quietly took over the management of most of the essential castle affairs while the useless councillors debated succession and other such banalities.

Merlin watched over the ruins of Arthur's shattered kingdom for a while, heartsick, until he too, could no longer stand to remain. He went to Arthur's empty mound for a last time to bid farewell to Arthur's memory, and found Morgana already there, laying down flowers.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded, surprise making him brusque.

Morgana smiled. The calm she had finally found at the end suited her well. "He was my brother always, even before I knew of the blood that we shared. I never forgot that, even when I was trying to kill him."

Merlin kept his eyes on the flowers, which looked like a simple handful of assorted wildflowers. If they had any particular significance, it was lost on him. "Then why did you try to kill him?"

She laughed at the question, soft and bitter. "I tried to kill everyone who had even the slightest connection to Uther, and you ask why Arthur? My dear father and his loyal traitor, Gaius. What would they have done had Arthur been the one born with magic instead?"

There wasn't anything he could say to that. It wasn't something he hadn't considered himself. Merlin inclined his head, both respect and farewell, and turned to go.

Then there was a bright bolt of pain through his back, and he fell to his knees, breath rushing from his lungs in shock. He swayed forward, then his elbows hit the ground before he finally managed to stop his fall, and he turned his head to look back in shock. "Morgana?"

She was still standing there, watching him gasp wetly for air as his lungs began to fill with blood. Her beautiful face as calm and unperturbed as though nothing had happened. "You were the first to help me, when I began to awaken to my powers," she said. "I never thanked you for that."

Merlin clenched his fists in the grass, uncertain if his confusion was due to his growing light-headedness, or if the light-headedness was the result of his confusion. "Why..."

"Yet you lied to me like Uther and Gaius, keeping their secrets for them. I had to learn it all from someone whose first purpose was for Uther's destruction." Morgana shook her head, blurring in Merlin's vision. He shut his eyes and bent to rest his forehead on the soft grass. "I will leave flowers on your grave too."

**Author's Note:**

> Read the dvd commentary on my lj [here](http://xsmoonshine.livejournal.com/417027.html), or ask about anything else you want. (Also, please feel free to point out any mistakes you see; I've cleaned it up some since the original posting, but it's still a bit of an unbetaed mess.)


End file.
